J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Grenoble Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Road into Martigny from Sembrancher, the Castle of La Bâtiaz Overlooking the Rhône Valley 1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Road into Martigny from Sembrancher, the Castle of La Bâtiaz Overlooking the Rhône Valley’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Road into Martigny from Sembrancher, the Castle of La Bâtiaz Overlooking the Rhône Valley 1802
D04509
Turner Bequest LXXIV 16
Pencil, black chalk and white gouache on greyish-buff laid paper, 282 x 211 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 16’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For views of Martigny from this sketchbook see notes to D04494; Turner Bequest LXXIV 2.
This drawing is taken from the road to Martigny from the south, along the narrow valley of the River Drance. The wider Rhône Valley is in the distance beyond the Castle of La Bâtiaz. The sheet may have been splashed with rain, and wavy pencil marks on the road probably indicate puddles and reflections after a shower; however, white highlights suggest that the sun has come out again.
This drawing was called ‘Grenoble’ by John Ruskin and listed as such by Finberg. Either it had been wrongly labelled by Turner or Ruskin mistook the castle for the Bastille at Grenoble.
Verso:
Laid down

David Blayney Brown
September 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Road into Martigny from Sembrancher, the Castle of La Bâtiaz Overlooking the Rhône Valley 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-road-into-martigny-from-sembrancher-the-castle-of-la-r1146379, accessed 19 April 2024.